Many will argue that Freud’s ideas have exerted a profound influence on twentieth –century thought and culture, though his work has come under scrutiny, it has shape the fundamentals of society view on civilization and discontents, dreams, psychoanalysis and the unconscious. For this paper, I will be discussing Freud’s fundamentals of dreams, what dreams represents, how dreams are constructed and its significance while paying close attention to the following areas of dreams, manifest and latent content, condensation and displacement, and censorship and repression.
First, let examined the definition of dream according to Sigmund Freud “dream is the disguised fulfilment of a repressed wish. Dreams are constructed like a neurotic symptom: they are compromises between the demands of a repressed impulse and the resistance of a censoring force in the ego” (Freud, 28). This simple means that all dreams represent the fulfilment of a wish by the dreamer. Dreams are the mind way of keeping an individual asleep and to digest and work out all that we have going on inside our brains, the negative, positive, fear and unclear thoughts and actions. This set the framework for dream work. Freud also stresses that even anxiety dreams and nightmares are expressions of unconscious desire. Freud further went on to say that, “the general function of dreaming is to fending off, by a kind of soothing action, external or internal stimuli which would tend to arose the sleeper, and thus of securing sleep against interpretation” (Freud, 28). With this, it shows that a dreamer can take apart his dream and analysis it, if he or she remembers, once conscious.
Often time’s dreams are enhance by external or internal stimulus, or even repressed emotions are ...
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...of dream and how dream derived is undisputed but I do not believe dreams are fundamental of unfulfilled desires. Like natural phenomenon in the world, such as earthquakes, storms, thunder, etcetera, dreams are natural occurrence in humankind and dreams is just the way in which our mind process all the event of our lifetime and day to day activities that we engaged ourselves in. The mind tries to resolve or give solution to issues that were not solved though out the day or years as well as filling away important data. Due to this, there are so much unprocessed materials in the brain hence dreams becomes senseless when an individual awakens because there is too many materials to be process, flush out, or saved. Therefore, dreams become jumbled and many dreams condense into one.
Works Cited
Sigmund, F. The Freud Reader. (1986). Paper Back. Printed & Bonded in USA
But to me, dreams are a way of guidance to what is next after this life. Ultimately, we also may never know the true meaning behind dreams. However, I believe it is important that every human being has their own logical interpretations of dreams in order to understand themselves in a deeper and more enhanced way. Stephen King’s belief that our conscious goes deeper than we have been thought to think hints that our personalities, emotions, desires and overall-selves can be understood to a greater degree with the help of dreams. Not only do I agree with King, but I also believe that it is a great achievement to be able to understand ourselves in ways other people
...heory, reverse learning theory, and activation synthesis model, others focus on the mental exercise and simulations that dreams bring to us in the evolutionary theory of sleep. While many of the theories agree that dreams are a representation of ideas and thoughts from the unconscious mind, no single theory has been formed as the single primary authority on the matter of dreams despite more support for some of the theories. The fact of the matter is that despite the rampant research and discourse on the concept behind dreaming, these theories are merely speculations. But these speculations feed the curiosity on dreams and will hopefully lead to the expansion of dream analysis to not only better develop the current understanding of dreams, but also to help people around the world by possibly expanding dream analysis to become an early identifier of mental illness.
There are many facts that are unknown about dreams and their meanings. For centuries, philosophers and scientists have tried to understand the meaning of dreams. They have all been fascinated by the fact that the content of dreams may have meanings relating to one's life. Are dreams just thoughts in people's minds, or are dreams in fact representations of different areas in people's lives? Dreams represent many different areas of one's life in physical, emotional, and mental ways. Dreams can relay to people facts about their lives that they are not even aware of. There are also many ways that dreams can help cure different physical, emotional, and mental problems in one's life. This paper will discuss dreams and their meanings, and ways of interpreting a dream using such methods as hypnotherapy and psychoanalysis therapy that can help a person in physical, mental, and emotional ways. The first fact that will be discussed is what dreams are and how they work for people in allowing the person to discover more about himself. Dreams can be defined as "a conscious series of images that occur during sleep" (Collier's, vol. 8). Dreams are usually very vivid in color and imagery. They reveal to the dreamer different wishes, concerns, and worries that he or she has. Dreams usually reflect every part of who the dreamer is. The content of the person's dream is usually made up according to how old the dreamer is and how educated the he or she is (Collier's, vol. 8). Dreams are not planned out or thought up. The unconscious part of the mind brings out bits and pieces of information in the dreamer's mind and places them together. According to Encarta, dreams are almost always visual. Forty to fifty percent of dreams have some form of communication present in them and a very small percentage of dreams give the dreamer the ability to use his or her five senses (Encarta). Dreams allow one to take a closer look into his mind and himself in a quest for self-discovery. Dreams can be used to solve all different types of problems. In Sigmund Freud's book, The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud states: "As regards the dream, all the troubles of waking life are transferred by it to the sleeping state […]" (Freud 113). They relay things about a person that the person may not be able to see.
The average person spends over one-third of their life sleeping, and over this period of time he or she can have over 1,825 dreams (Wicklinski). By definition, dreams are mental images, thoughts, or emotions that are experienced while sleeping. In the beginning, dreams were thought to be messages sent from the gods or spirit world. Researchers now have many theories explaining why people dream. Many of these theories explain that dreams can resemble an individual’s sensory experiences or even secret wishes. All people dream, but only 42% of people can recall their dreams from the night before (“Dreams”). The study of dreams is a topic that is constantly being debated by researchers for many reasons. Dreaming is important because it can impact people’s health, provide insight into what they are feeling, and reveal information about their behavior.
It is universally known that dreams are full of meanings and emotions. In Freud’s theory, all dreams are wish fulfillments or at least attempts at wish fulfillment. The dreams are usually presented in an unrecognizable form because the wishes are repressed. Freud proposes there are two levels in the structure of dreams, the manifest contents and the latent dream-thoughts. The manifest dream, a dream with understandable contents, is a substitute-formation that hides latent dream-thoughts, which are the abstract ideas in dreams. This translation of latent dream-thoughts to the manifest dream-content is defined by Freud as “dream-work”. Dream-work consists of certain types of transformation.
When humans wake up from sleeping, we do not always recollect our dreams, yet the brain is still dreaming of what has actually happened. Dreams are formed through various processes, with the past being transformed into content that is thought to be not creative. Freud mentions in the On Dreams that dreams do not make things up that the psyche has not already experienced. As Freud states our dreams are not creative works, “…dream-work is not creative, that it develops no phantasies of its own, that is makes no judgements and draws no conclusions…” (Freud 162). In his terms, dream-work is known as the transformation process that dream-thought shifts to dream-content; consisting of both latent content and manifest
During prescientific days, dreams were interpreted as ‘manifestations’ of a ‘higher power’. Since the introduction of psychology, dreams have had 4 distinct interpretations. The first interprets dreams as a “liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature”. The second interprets dreams as “accidental disturbances from ‘internal organs’. The third interprets dreams as a foretelling of the future. The last interpretation is Freud’s. He interprets dream as an expression of subconscious desires.
In this paper I hope to open a window to the vast and mysterious world of dreaming. To most people, information about dreams isn’t common knowledge. In researching this subject though, I found that everybody has and reacts to dreams, which are vital to your mental health. You will also find how you can affect your dreams and how they affect you.
During Freud’s time, society typically viewed dreams as an intervention of a higher being or entity (Freud, 1900, p.4). However, Freud made the claim that dreams are the product of the dreamer and also that it serves two purposes. First, dreams form to keep a person asleep at night by blocking out external stimuli, much in the same way a person consciously does when turning off the light and minimizing noise before going to bed (“Freud’s Approach,” 2000). Next, Freud (1900) viewed humans as having grotesque sexual urges that “are suppressed before they are perceived” (p.37) in order to protect the person and allow him or her to get along in society; however, dreams serve the purpose of releasing these repressed desires as wishes which are disguised in the dream. Because a person cannot readily be aware of the unconscious wish, the dream is divided into two ...
Dreams have been thought to contain significant messages throughout many cultures. A dream is an unfolding sequence of perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that is experienced as a series of real-life events during sleep. The definitions of dreams are different among studies, which can also lead to quite different results. Perhaps, the dream interpretation has becoming increasingly popular. In this paper, I will talk about what I have learned about three different views of dream interpretations. One theory made by Sigmund Freud who believed that dreams are triggered by unacceptable repressed wishes, often of a sexual nature. He argued that because dreams we experience are merely disguised versions of people real dreams. The other theory called activation–synthesis theory, made by Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, based on the observation that during REM sleep, many brain-stem circuits become active and bombard the cerebral cortex with neural signals. The last theory, proposed by William Domhoff, is called the neurocognitive theory of dreaming, which demonstrates that dream content in general is continuous with waking conceptions and emotional preoccupations. Thus, dreaming is best understood as a developmental cognitive achievement that depends upon the maintenance of a specific network of forebrain structures. While each theory has different belief system and approach method, it is a great opportunity to know how former psychologists contributed to the field of dream interpretation.
Through research and collection of dreams from different cultures and people, Jung was able to note that dreams have common themes and are of two types: Big and Little. The former is characterized by universal prototypes, while the latter by human’s own thoughts and experiences. According to him, dreams are symbolisms of one’s aspirations and history that are beyond our consciousness. He believed that we must carefully think about our dreams from our subconscious minds as it sends messages on how we can live a meaningful
In the first chapter of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams the master himself explains to the reader that every dream divulges itself as being a structure of psychological nature. Freud goes on to describe that each dream is meaningful and that some dreams may be designated to a precise point in the activities of the wake mind.
Porter, Laurence M. The Interpretation of Dreams: Freud's Theories Revisited. Boston, Mass.: Twayne, 1987. Print.
Psychology, neuroscience try to explain them, 2012). He studied dreams to better understand aspects of personality as they relate to pathology. Freud believed that every action is motivated by the unconscious at a certain level. In order to be successful in a civilized society, the urges and desires of the unconscious mind must be repressed. Freud believed that dreams are manifestations of urges and desires that are suppressed in the unconscious. Freud categorized the mind into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. When one is awake, the impulses if the id are suppressed by the superego, but during dreams, one may get a glimpse into the unconscious mind, or the id. The unconscious has the opportunity to express hidden desires of the id during dreaming. Freud believed that the id can be so disturbing at times that the id’s content can be translated into a more acceptable form. This censor leads to a sometimes confusing and strange dream image. According to Freud, the reason one may struggle to remember a dream is because the superego protects the conscious mind from the disturbance of the unconscious mind (Dream Theories,
For thousands of years humans have experienced a phenomenon which we describe today as dreaming. It has puzzled and sparked interest to all whom experience it. For as long as people have been dreaming, there have been people trying to understand and interpret them. This research paper examines the causation and deeper meaning of dreams. It will compare and contrast the differentiating ideas on the subject by famous psychologists and also examine first-hand accounts from real individuals. The objective of paper is to shed some light on this complex and bizarre behavior.